In honor of the Halloween season, the Monday, October 21st edition of “The Freak Power Ticket” was the first of a two part reflection on the contemporary popularity of zombie narratives in cinema and television (and literature too, to a lesser extent).

Producer/host Ted Coe tabled discussion of the extensive works of “Zombie King” George A. Romero until next week’s broadcast (Monday, October 28) — when Professor Dick Hebdige (UCSB Film & Media Studies) will be a special guest on “The Freak Power Ticket” This week’s program touched primarily on a rough list of a dozen apocalyptic post-Night of the Living Dead motion pictures from the 1970s-1980s (and one prior work), including:

• Ubaldo Ragano and Sidney Salkow‘s The Last Man on Earth (1964), with Vincent Price;

• Dan O’Bannon‘s punk-rock zombie classic The Return of the Living Dead (1985).

Coe also shared music from these films, trailers, audio samples, and commentary.

He rounded out the program with a brief conversation with Nelson Cooper, the artist/organizer behind Dead Run 805, a haunted zombie maze that runs through this weekend at The House of Magic in Ventura, CA, ending October 27th. (Also, this Saturday, October 26th, former “Freak Power Ticket” guest Steven Linderholm and several undead associates revivify Zombie Walk 2013: Lompocalpyse [in Lompoc], from 2-7pm. The latter event is free and open to the public.).

A complete playlist for the broadcast + the PODCAST of the Nelson Cooper interview can be found below.